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By Julie Stoll, former Director of MBC Missions
Yes, cake! A baker takes strikingly different ingredients, mixes them in a certain order, and when heat is applied over time, you get a chemical change. A new entity exists. Not just a bunch of ingredients thrown together to make a mixed salad where all the individual characteristics of the vegetables can be separated again. No. A cake is an organically changed, new composition. One can’t recognize the original ingredients anymore, yet each ingredient is absolutely essential to the new creation. Unity is like cake! This new thing is beautiful to behold, tastes heavenly, and actually will draw people to the table. Few are not attracted to a fresh cake. That, my…
“I do not ask on behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in Me through their word; that they may all be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me…” (John 17:20-23 NASB)
In verse 23, the Lord Jesus prays “…that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me…” Those who are unsaved will react to our message by what they hear us say and, more importantly, do. It is imperative that we show unity and love as Christians, if that is what we want to show others…
And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ; until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ. (Hebrews 4:11-12 NASB)
Paul urges the Church in Ephesus to use their varied gifts to build and strengthen one another up in love. Often times, there is a temptation to remain on the sidelines and leave the work of ministry up to the “professionals.”…